Sacred Ashes
by maxn98
Summary: This is a story of a group of people setting out to solve a mystery involving a wizard. This is also my first fanfic, so by nice.
1. Chapter 1

_Prologue_

SACRED Ashes

"Three orcs, left side!"

Arthas' savage war cry reverberated from the alley walls. He bounded across the intervening space and met the onrushing orcs head-on. One prodigious sweep of Slackbite, his massive double-bladed faery-forged sword, hewed two of the attackers clean through the midsection, and the backstroke clove the third from crown to colon. The remaining dozen swirled around him, slipping in the entrails of their comrades, but Slackbite wove a song of death among them, and heads, limbs, and viscera were scattered across the muck with every vicious swipe.

Elgarain hopped onto a box and drew her bow, her ample breasts straining against her leather bodice. She feathered two orcs with a single black shaft.

Arthas thundered his Delgathiona battle song as he mowed down adversaries like dogs on the ridge. The few remaining orcs, realizing that their careful ambush had crashed upon the rocks of the giant knight's blade and assassin's bow, broke off and charged at Princess Caterina, desperate to fulfill their mission.

Beorn instantly interposed himself, whipping out Frostmourne, his short sword. Caterina clutched his jerkin in terror, her heavy breasts pressing against his back, her sweet elf breath hot on his farmboy neck. He tried to stifle his trembling, for he had never seen battle before. Three orcs bore down on him, their piggish eyes twinkling like gems of hatred in a night sky of evil. Suddenly, a black arrow hummed past like an angry harmonica and thudded into chest of one, knocking him sprawling. Another arrow, another dead orc.

But the last was now too close. With a foul-breathed, broken-toothed growl, he chopped at Beorn with a rusty hatchet. Gritting his teeth, Beorn pictured the orc as a dire gopher and Frostmourne as a hoe. He met the hatchet mid-swing, beating it aside even as the blow numbed his arm and drove him to his knees.

Caterina shrieked, and the orc laughed cruelly, raising his weapon again.

"No!" Beorn cried. How could he ever reach Where the Moon Falls Not without the princess?

The orc took a single step forward, then lurched suddenly and unnaturally to the side, transfixed through the sternum by Slackbite—hurled with the full might of Arthas' iron thews—and crashed against the alley wall. His head and arm slid to one side, the rest of him to the other, spraying gouts of thick green ichors.

"What ho, stripling!" bellowed Arthas, idly combing brains and gore from his dark brown hair. "Art thou and the fair Lady Caterina unharmed?"

Beorn swallowed and staggered to his feet. Caterina, her fist held to her full lips, and her limpid violet eyes wide, nodded at him and smiled demurely.

"Yes," he replied shakily. "We're fine."

Fists on hips, Arthas threw back his head and roared with laughter. "By Gromm, these misbegotten devil-spawns provide ill support indeed. Not even a fair stretching of my limbs. What say you, archer-woman?"

Elgarain paused in cutting free one of her barbed arrows from its victim. "They die easily."

Arthas whooped again. "Well said, assassin-wench!" Placing a huge blood-clotted boot on the remains of a nearby orc, he yanked free another arrow and squinted at it critically.

"Fie! This dark wood reeks of skullduggery. A weapon for night-slaying. Give me the stout yellow yew from the forests of Delgathiona."

Elgarain strode up to him and took the arrow, replacing it carefully in the quiver. "I prefer the ebon shaft," she told him boldly, "for its greater length and strength."

"Look!" cried Caterina, pointing towards the far end of the alley.

There, a guttering, dented oil lamp swayed in the night breeze and beside it a warped and faded sign with only one word upon it: POTIONS.

"It's the sign the beggar at the market told us to look for," she continued excitedly.

"'Tis so, by my troth." Boomed Arthas, wiping Slackbite clean on a fallen foe's tunic.

"Make haste," urged Elgarain, her lithe form padding along the alley as silently as a snake, "before more of Octopus's thugs find us."

Unhesitatingly, Arthas strode to the dingy door below the sign and hammered it with the flat of his sword, a single blow that sounded like a clap of loud noise.

"Proprietor!" he bellowed. "Open the door for Arthas Menethil de Klehia!"

A slit slid open in the door, and a pair of eyes, black as pits of a well, glared out at them. "What do you want?"

Beorn peered around Arthas' giant frame. "Please, sir. We have an urgent need to see Ergandane the Magnificent."

The eyes narrowed. "There's no one here by that name."

The slit slammed shut.

"Stand thee aside, plow-lad," Arthas growled. He spit in his hands and took hold of Slackbite. "Gromm strike me down if any portal ever wrought balks a Barbarian Knight of the Royal Order of Kusmuthoses."

"Wait!" Caterina pushed her nubile form to the fore and cupped her slender white hands around her luscious red lips.

"Please," she called into the potions shop. "I am Princess Caterina of Elfenheim. My grandfather was Porhu the Wise. He knew Ergandane at the College of Alethiomancy."

A pregnant pause ensued, gravid with expectancy.

Arthas glowered.

A rattling at the door heralded its unlocking, and presently the portal swung inward. The party entered to find themselves in a cramped shop where bottles of all shapes, sizes and colors festooned the shelves from floor to ceiling, glittering like stars in a crown.

A man stood there. Tall, he was, nearly as tall as Arthas, with wide shoulders, powerful arms, a jagged scar across his neck, and dragon tattoo on his back. A black cloak swathed him from head to foot, revealing only his untrusting eyes.

"Follow me," he commanded in a rasping voice, "and woe betide any who bears ill will against my master."

Arthas snorted. "Woe betide any who betides woe on well-meaning adventurers," he retorted.

Down a narrow hallway they walked. Beorn tested his injured knee and found it strong, which relieved him, for it, had been hanging over his head ever since his flight from Idylldale over a month ago.

The hall debouched into a cozy sitting room with deep rugs and well-turned tables. A fire blazed in the hearth, and in an overstuffed chair sat a wizened old man sucking on a long thin pipe, his trailing white beard draped across the breast of a robe festooned with yellow moons, orange stars, blue diamonds, and purple horseshoes. His kindly, elderly eyes alit on Caterina.

"Ah," he said, "you have your grandfather in you; I can see that. What does Porhu's progeny want of an old thaumaturge such as me?"

"If you please, Master Ergandane," said Caterina, pulling Beorn's arm, "this young man has proof that the Dark Dwarves are rising."

The tall man in the cloak laughed derisively, but Ergandane plucked the pipe from his mouth dramatically. He leaned forward, the orange flames casting his face in high relief.

"What's this?" he whispered expressively, his eyes fixed on Beorn.

"Yes, sir," stammered Beorn, producing the Dwarfknob from his breeches. It glowed red in his fist. "I found this when tilling our turnip field."

"Then it's true," muttered the old sorcerer. "The red Dwarfknob has come to light. The prophecy is coming true."

"What mean you, potion-peddler?" demanded Arthas. "Where the Moon Falls Not truly is a fable spun by maundering fishwives in the marketplace. This hobbledehoy's rock is a gnome's jape, I wager."

Ergandane leaned forward, the crackling red flames shrouding his face in deep shadow. "Not so, my massively proportioned-friend. 'Tis a place real enough, I'm sorry to say. Under the Devilbone Mountains, they dwell. Deep in the earth where the goodly kiss of moonlight has never shone. A place of unutterable foulness will spread far and wide. All of Billerikah will be in peril."

Elgarain slithered toward him like a jungle cat. "If the Dark Dwarves do exist, old man, then what of the other legends? The hoards of gold and gems they supposedly protect?"

"They are true enough, the spoils of lands conquered when the world was young and swathed in eternal darkness. Verily, the treasures lurking there cannot be overestimated."

Arthas barked gleefully. "No man woman-born pursues booty with more fervor than I. Point me towards this moonshineless kingdom, ancient one, and then stand ye well beyond the sweep of Slackbite."

"Address the master with respect, barbarian," demanded the man in the cloak, whose name was Ferric, "lest I thrash the insolence from you."

Arthas gripped his sword handle menacingly. "Thou has but to try, sirrah."

"Enough!" Beorn snapped. The large men, startled by his brashness, stilled themselves. "Sir," continued Beorn to the mage, "how can the Dwarves be stopped? Does the prophecy say? I feel the Dwarfknob pulling me there, and yet I know not what to do."

Ergandane leaned forward, the dancing yellow flames bathing his face in warm light. "The Dwarfknob, the heart of a champion, and blood of the royal house of Elfenheim must combine to quell the rising. That is all that is known."

Beorn looked at his hand. "I have the Dwarfknob, the princess is of royal blood, and surely Arthas has the heart of a champion."

The Delgathionan preened. "Fairly flattered I be, and yet you are aright. Fret not, callow youth. I shall lead you to Where the Moon Falls Not—and me its booty."

"And I," added Caterina sweetly, gently squeezing his shoulder.

Ferric scoffed at Beorn. "You think thou art up to the task? Pshaw! Where the Moon Falls Not is not a place for boys, but for men. Only those who have girded their loins and faced true horror can brave it."

Beorn gulped, for he knew Ferric was right.

"I am very apprehensive about why you brought this information to me," Ergandane said, placing his pipe on his bottom lip and sucking it into his mouth. "For why did you not take this to the Valkyrie council?" Arthas puffed out his chest and spread out his arms to make himself look bigger against Ferric, who was hunched over slightly, yet still about a foot taller than him, which irritated him immensely.

"We come to you," Beorn started.

"We come to you for your wisdom." Elgarain finished, cutting Beorn off entirely. "The Valkyrie Council has nothing to offer us except for a long discussion about what to do and what not to do. That could've taken years, we don't have that long."

"Though _they_ seem to have the time." muttered Arthas, pressing his chest against Ferric's, a frown on his face.

Ergandane leaned back in his chair, the light from fire now washed away from his face and the consumption of shadows took his face, the smoke from his pipe barely visible. He lifted his hand up crudely, revealed a chalk white finger and pointed at Ferric. "Fetch me a book, wouldn't you Ferric. The Book of Unmentionables, if you'd please."

Ferric turned towards his master, bowed, took one last glance at Arthas, and walked into another room for a moment, returning with a giant book in his hand. Cobwebs surrounded the leather cover; elvish writing was encrypted on the binding along with a black grapevine swirling around the entire thing. Ferric traced his finger down the bind, along the grapevine, and gently handed it over towards Ergandane.

Resting it on his lap, Ergandane motioned for Beorn to come closer to him. "Boy, do as I say when I say. Understand?"

He didn't, but nodded.

Ergandane hesitated, a strange look on his face. But he eventually opened up the book and turned to the second page. "Thou know the main factor of the prophecy, but do you know of the side story, the story of the Valkyrie?"

"_Please_, don't get onto that again." Elgarain shouted. "I told you, we want nothing to do with the Valkyrie, they've brought us nothing desirable, just talk."

"And why is talking not desirable?" Ergandane objected. "Would you rather see a thousand people die or twenty, Lady Elgarain?"

"War is young men fighting and old men talking."

"I am old and yes I do talk. But do you mean to talk down on me as if I were an inferior?"

"Y—"

"If I wanted to, I could turn you inside out. I could make you explode with a snap of my fingers. So if we are talking inferiority, you would be way down the list. _Behind_ the Valkyrie Masters."

"The Valkyrie buy their power with empty promises, basic government that says they will do something and end up having it at the bottom of their to-do list. I doubt they could do anything we would need of them, unless we need a stupid history lesson—"

Ferric struck her with his fist, shouting, "Never speak of the Masters like that again!" Elgarain grabbed his hand and his elbow, twisting his hand and punching his elbow, and knocked him on the ground.

Ergandane chuckled lightly. "Do you now see as what I mean by judgment of inferiority? He struck at you with the assumption he could take you down because you are a woman. Yet you attacked him with power to the tenfold."

Ferric stood, panting heavily and rubbing his arm.

"Now shut up and listen," Arthas playfully punched Elgarain's shoulder. "If he has something to say, it must be important."

7


	2. Prologue

_Hey, guys, its maxn98. I read your reviews and decided I would do a rewrite of Sacred Ashes, this time so that I could share with you a story I've been working on for a long time. This is the first part of the story's prologue that I have yet to finish, so if you guys could read it and send me some feedback that'd be great._

**III**

"Gaze upon my blade, creatures of the Nine Infernos!"

Arthas' savage war cry reverberated from the alley walls. He bounded across the intervening space and met the onrushing orcs head-on. One prodigious strike from Slackbite, his massive double-edged faery-forged sword, hewed two of the attackers clean through the midsection, with the backstroke cleaving the third from crown to colon. The remaining dozen swirled around him, slipping over the entrails of their fallen comrades. But Slackbite wove a song of death around them. Heads, limbs, and viscera were scattered across the red and pink muck with every vicious swipe.

Elgarain hopped onto a box and drew her bow, her ample breasts straining against her leather bodice.

Twak!

A single black shaft feathered two orcs as they clumsily raced forward.

Arthas thundered his Delgathionian battle song as chopped through his adversaries like dogs trapped inside a cramped kennel. The few remaining orcs, realizing that their careful ambush had crashed upon the rocks of the giant knight's blade and assassin's bow, broke off and charged towards Princess Caterina, desperate to fulfill their mission.

Lord Sirius Pycily immediately interposed himself, drawing out Frostmourne, his short sword. Caterina clutched his jerkin in terror, her heavy breasts pressing hard against his back, her sweet elvish breath hot on his sensitive neck. He tried to repress his trembling, for he had never seen battle before. Three orcs bore down upon him, their piggish eyes twinkling like gems of hatred in a night sky of evil. Suddenly, a black arrow hummed through the air like an angry harmonica and struck through the chest of one, knocking him down. Another arrow flew and another dead orc dropped.

But the last was now too close. With a foul-breathed, broken-toothed growl, he swung at Pycily with a rusty machete. Gritting his teeth, Pycily pictured the orc as a white piece of parchment and Frostmourne as a pen waiting to write. Serious was good with pens and parchment, not swords. He had been raised by his father in the richer district of Coll Die, taught how to read and write and how to run his father's trading business. He'd trained with a sword when he was younger, but his teacher beat him too often and Serious gave up, ordering his teacher be fired. He was raised to write papers, not to be a knight—certainly not a killer. So all he could think to compare with sword meeting sword was a pen writing down upon an old piece of parchment. He met the machete mid-swing, beating it aside even as the blow numbed his arm and drove him to his knees.

Caterina shrieked as the orc stepped forward, grabbing her by the breast and laughing cruelly, raising his weapon again.

"No!" Pycily cried. How could he ever prove the House D'Alessio guilty if his only witness was killed?

The orc swung his blade down upon her, taking a single step forward. But then he lurched suddenly and unnaturally to his side, transfixed through the sternum by Slackbite—heaved away by the full might of Arthas' iron thews—and crashed against the alley wall. His head and arm slid to one side, the rest of his body to the other, spraying gouts of thick green ichors.

"What ho, stripling!" bellowed Arthas, idly combing brains and gore from his dark brown hair. "Art thou and the fair Lady Caterina unharmed?"

Pycily could barely understand anything the giant knight ever said. He was from the land of Delgathiona, and the Dragonian Standard wasn't the original language he spoke. When he came to Billerikah, he began reading as much books as he possibly could, which consisted of mainly religious articles written in ridiculous formalities. So how they were written was the only way Arthas knew how to speak. To Sirius, it was a wonder that Arthas was given the privilege of becoming a knight—let alone a member of the Royal Order of Kusmuthoses.

Pycily swallowed and dizzily staggered to his feet. Caterina, her fist held up to her full lips and her limpid violet eyes wide, nodded at Arthas and smiled timidly.

"Yes," he said shakily. "We're fine."

Arthas sheathed his sword.

Fists on hips, Arthas threw his head back in laughter. "By Gromm, these mis-begotten devil spawns provide ill support indeed. Not even a fair stretching of the limbs. What say you, archer-woman?"

Elgarain cut free one of her barbed arrows from its victim. "They die easily."

Arthas roared. "Well said, assassin-wench!" Placing a huge blood-clotted boot on the remains of an orc, he yanked free another arrow and examined it carefully, his eyes squinted.

"Fie! This dark wood reeks of skullduggery—a weapon for night-slaying. Give me the stout yellow yew from the forests of Delgathiona!"

Elgarain strode up to him and took the arrow, replacing it carefully in the quiver. "I prefer the ebon shaft," she told him boldly, "for its greater length and strength."

"Look!" cried Caterina, pointing towards the senate building down the cobblestone roads, towering above the rest of Coll Die.

**III**

"Why should we end the fighting?" Senator Fraguyi said, leaving the shadows below the elevated platform at the center of the amphitheater. The Duke, from his seat, cupped his chin in his hand. "The way I see it," Fraguyi paused. "Is that every man and woman who is fighting against His Majesty's Royal Army deserves what shall come to them in the days to come…"

The senator continued to speak, but his voice was drained from the air by the thunderous applause as the members of the Royal Senate cheered in agreement. Fraguyi stepped forward, his cloak hovering over the wood of the platform. He raised his arms for his fellow legislators to quiet.

"Calm…silence, my friends," he turned his gaze upon the Duke. "My brother and his son—and my son—have all fallen victim to the war that Samwell Gree, first of his name, had started all those years ago. He and the people of Lionsgate started this war and now that they have begun to lose they send this filthy son-of-a-whore to beg for mercy." Clutching the collar of his tunic with one hand and balling his other into a fist, Fraguyi took a dramatic deep breath. "But I am far from intending to vote for a peace treaty, not when we are so very close to victory. Those who agree, say 'I'."

Fraguyi looked up at his fellow senators.

A pregnant pause ensued.

Fraguyi choked up as he swallowed, "What say you?"

The crowd of senators stood up, their fists high above their heads waving in the air, hate in their hearts and blood in their eyes. This was exactly how Fraguyi had hoped the senators would reach, and he was happy about that fact. Finished with his opening statement, the aging senator stepped down from the platform and returned to his seat amongst the crowd.

Roderick Domdarrion, third of his name, of House Domdarrion, took this split moment between statements to turn towards his brother, Robert, who sat beside him, scribbling down notes on a piece of parchment.

"Where has the mighty Laurence Giuliano run off to? Is he at home this time? Drinking the best wine and fucking the best whores? Or was it the other way around?"

Robert's eyes remained fixated on his notes and his feathered pen. "I do not know; maybe a bit of both and maybe at the same time. I know not and care not, as I have no business in the matter. All that interests me is how this vote turns out and if my sons and grandson shall return home or not."

Roderick smiled, twisted the tip of his thin mustache. "You need to relax, brother, have you not been listening to what all of the senators have been saying for the past hour? Your boys 'l be home by the fortnight. Now join in on the laugh I am so desperately attempting with you." He patted his brother on the shoulder, his smile growing wider.

Robert looked up from his parchment, his emerald eyes glowing. He licked the top of his mouth and uttered the word, "No."

Roderick sighed, slouching back in his chair. He understood his brother's despair and anxious attitude. His sons, Carlo and Ilario, had been fighting for two years now over in the West, attempting to climb the walls of Lionsgate day after day. Two months ago, Ilario's adopted son, Jaxon Stark, had reached the age of fourteen, the eligible age to enlist in the military and had been shipped off to Lionsgate to help the war effort. But Robert wasn't the only one who feared for the boys, the whole family despaired that they might never come home. Roderick was scared for his nephews, but he didn't despair. Carlo had been trained by the best swordfighters in all of Dragonia since he was four and Ilario had practiced carrying and using all weapons available to him ever since he was able to hold a stick. So, outwardly, he wasn't nervous that the boys might die, but inside—deep, deep inside—his heart skipped a beat whenever the casualty lists were posted on the side of city hall.

That was the difference between Robert and Roderick. Roderick had been trained in the ways of the sword since he was five and because of this, he became a huge and heavy-muscled man. His face was gaunt, with sharp cheekbones and grey eyes. His brow was heavy and his lips were faint and he kept his long black hair tied up in a large knot. All of Roderick's life, he had been fighting. When he was six, he killed five Utwain soldiers during the Water Wars in a sword duel. Since then Roderick had participated in dozens of wars and battles, each one leaving its own mark upon him.

Across his face he bore a red "7" from when a prisoner of his obtained a broken bottle and struck him down. He laughed about it afterward, wrapping a rope around the prisoner's neck and hanging him over the side of his garrison's castle. Later, he would tell people he'd been fucking a whore too hard and she had hit him with a glass to make him stop. This always seemed to make people laugh.

For the past ten years, Roderick had been assigned by the king's son Jofré Astel to run the eastern fortress of Starfall Astel on the Celestrian border to hold off any rebel forces that might try to sneak through the Black Forest or through the Devil-bone mountains. To most it would seem like a cold and harsh punishment. But to Roderick it was heaven. He loved being in charge of his own army, which consisted primarily of a pack of hand-picked mercenaries from all over Billerikah, and he loved having his own castle to call his home. And every other month he would be called to support the King's armies in a fight with someone, whether it was the Utwains or the Celestrians.

Fighter and bloodthirsty and eager were words that could all be used to describe the elder of the Domdarrion brothers, while his family's crest said "Be strong. But be smarter than others." Roderick had the words "Speed, surprise, the violence of action" etched into the stone of his keep underneath his family arms.

Robert had been raised to be the total opposite from his brother. Where Roderick exceeded with his brawns, Robert outdid with both his brains and his brawns. Where Roderick had been trained to fight with swords and fists, Robert had been trained to fight with his sword and mind. While Roderick beat dummies to pieces with a war hammer out in the villa courtyard, Robert was inside, filling up his head with the contents of banking books and military novels. When Roderick enlisted in the army, Robert had signed up to be a clerk in the D'Alessio banking franchise in Valenor, south of the Coldwind Forest. There he became one of the most promising men of his generation. By the time he was twenty, he was married with two children. By his fortieth birthday, three of his children were out of their teenage years, two had children, and one was a high ranking officer in the Royal Army. By this time he was also running his own bank and was a member of the Royal Senate.

"You need to relax, brother." Roderick continued. "The surrender of Lionsgate is inevitable, even if this peace treaty does not get passed." He looked down at the parchment resting on Robert's lap. "Come now, since when did you ever have to do more than sit and sleep during one of these meetings?"

"Once the men who made up the meetings forgot everything said to them in the last ten minutes." Robert snapped.

"Hey!" Roderick exclaimed, leaning backward. "Don't yell at me. And when did you start to care whether or not these hoary scumbags remember what has been said to them?"

Robert opened his mouth, but at that moment, Duke Samwell began his desperate rebuttal. The man stood at the pedestal at the center of the platform, with his hollow blue eyes teary and lips stretched out, swollen, and pouty. Once a happy gentleman with a sly grin permanently etched across his rosy cheeks, now he was barely the shell of his former self, pathetic and pleading before a group of geriatric senators.

"My fellow Dragonians…" he started. "When I began the revolution for Lions-gate's freedom, I set out with sole purpose of removing Viceroy Barvon III from office. I had no intention of starting an all-out war against Dragonia—"

"Going against one Dragonian is going against all Dragonians!" yelled one senator, standing and waving his fist in the air. Some of the others followed his aggressive example, yelling a synchronized chorus of "Aye!" and "Yes!" their fists waving in the air and their brows cocked into frowns.

"Go back to your whore-mother, Duke!" another senator barked.

"For as long as I still have breath in my body, I shall never vote for your peace treaty to go through." barked a third.

Senator Fraguyi stood. "Why shouldn't we kill you as a traitor to the King and Dragonia? Send your head in a box and send it to your people? Show your people what happens to traitors." Fraguyi moved away from his seat, stepping down onto the platform in front of the Duke, shoving his finger in the man's face. "Bandying empty words such as these is hardly worth the precious time of my fellow senators."

"Step back, disciple." the Duke barked. "You've had your turn to speak, now step down. Await your turn." He shoved the angry senator aside and stepped up to the edge of the platform. "My fellow Dragonians, it has been a difficult war and it has been a long war. His Majesty has won some and Lionsgate has won some. Ten years we have been fighting against one another, thousands have died from sword and disease alike. Do you not think it is time to end this famine we call bloodshed? Why let me into your borders if you did not wish to speak with me—to at least listen to what I have to say? Does no one wish for our sons, our brothers, our fathers, and our grandfathers to come home? I have lost twelve family members to this conflict…and I have wanted peace since the day I ordered the execution of the Viceroy. Barvon was a foolish and corruptible man, but I do not blame the King for his corruption. I blame the poverty that had been looming over Lionsgate for the past hundred years. Had it not been for this, I do not believe any of this would have ever happened.

Now, I am not requesting trading rights or for military access or for an alliance. All I can ever hope for is for things to go back to the way they were. So, please, look into your hearts and souls and imagine, if you will, a world without this civil war—a more peaceful realm."

No one spoke, no one moved; an eerie silence consumed the already tight air around the senators.

Roderick leaned in, rubbing his palm across his chin.

**III**

"Come, Marth, the crows do not wish to wait for their supper." Ike whispered, leaning in to his fellow guard and nudging him with his elbow.

They had been planning this for months, planning the murder of the Samwell III, Duke of Lionsgate. The pair knew that the minds of the senators had been turned, even before the Duke had changed them. They knew this because they had planned for it. They'd planned for everything. Ike had seen to it that the Lionsgate supply lines were cut off by Dragonian troops and that they had the element of surprise on their sides when they began their final siege. Marth took it upon him-self to dip into his family's funds and support the Dragonians by paying for their weapons, armor, and upkeep. The pair had even gone so far as volunteering for guard duty so that they would have easy access to the platform the Duke stood upon.

He had his giant pole arm, Amplus, in hand and his saber, Acuartis, ready in its sheath. Ike had been training for this his whole life. On his eleventh birthday, Ike asked only to become a squire to a knight, which his father gave to him gladly. Two years later, Ike entered the melee tourney in a tournament in Eebar Piscal, and defeated fifteen veteran knights. Then, after the death of his master, Sir Richard Darryl during the Battle of the Greyling River, Ike took it upon himself to fight off the hordes of the Brotherhood of Utwain. It was there, on the battlefield, that he was knighted by Sir Gerald Grandz and was placed in His Majesty's Third Army, where he met Marth and fought in over a hundred battles and sieges. During this time, Ike was introduced to by Marth and studied in the ways of "Terro", an Oerk religion of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, which enlightened him to the cause he was fighting for now.

Marth stood beside him, a mace in one hand and a shield in the other, both of which he had names for and were very precious to him; Scutii for his shield, the Dwarven word for "protection", and named his scimitar Incidore in favor of the word "slash". They were simple enough meanings, and this mirrored the man's complicated personality and life. Marth was a follower of "Terro" since birth, his parents both leaving him early on to the service of martyrdom, sending him into the arms of his uncle, who took him on his travels across Billerikah. During these travels, Marth was knighted in both Utwan and Celestra, and became a "sacred soldier" in one of the most notorious chieftain armies in Rhulak-Zagul. On his nineteenth birthday, he murdered his uncle in his sleep so that all of his family's inheritance would be his. He then enlisted in the Dragonian army, becoming knighted one month into service, which was where he met Ike.

There had been a perpetual silence for a few minutes by this point and Ike was becoming anxious. He shifted in his thick suit of armor and looked at Marth, whose expressionless face revealed nothing about what he was planning to do.

"Do you see Dotrice and Knite?" Marth said. His hushed and shrill voice sent bumps up his comrade's back.

"I assure you, Marth, they are ready." Ike replied.

Marth's neck snapped to the side, his silver eyes staring directly down at Ike, a frown forming over his face. "Do not be brash. Do not assume anything. For all we know they could be drunk and asleep."

Ike shrugged. "You infer this only because we have not seen them, as they have been planning their own moves. Just as we have. How do we know they aren't feeling the same way?"

"Because," Marth snapped. "Knowing their lethargic tendencies, they would have sent us a pigeon or a messenger boy. Use your mind—or have I taught you nothing?" Ike's mouth gapped open as he attempted to answer…but Marth had other intentions. "We shall wait for the Duke to continue. If the others do not begin by that point, we must proceed as planned or fail altogether."

They stood at the base of the platform, and Ike could see an entire quarter of the senators in the amphitheater. Knite and Dotrice were somewhere up there, hiding within the crowd of men, both weapons and bodies prepared for Marth's signal, which had yet to be unveiled to both them and Ike. The Duke continued to talk and Ike continued to stand, completely motionless. Often he glanced at Marth for some clue, but was given no sign.

The Duke continued to speak.

It might as well have been gibberish to Ike, as he paid no attention to it and caught nothing that was said. He stepped forward, but Marth reached out, gripping him by the collar and shoving him back in his place.

"You will wait for my move!" Marth growled, his lip twitching.

Ike sighed heavily and watched as Marth drew out his golden hilted scimitar and tightened his grip around Scutii. He stepped forward, barely turning his head to motion for Ike to follow him. Marching forward, with sweat beading down the back of his neck, Amplus felt heavy in his hand, weighing him down greatly. He had been studying this plan for months, helping Marth and Knite make the preparations, yet he still felt tense. As he followed his leader down the aisle leading to the platform, he went over the plan several times in his head.

The Duke's bodyguards were positioned directly underneath the platform, ready in case the peace treaty had gone wrong. He could see them clearly—all twelve of them—and could already tell that they wouldn't be ready for an attack. Ale jugs and pipes lay strewn across the floor, their weapons cast aside amongst the mess. Most of them looked like they were ready to fall asleep. This was a good thing…not for them, but it would make Ike's job easier. Marth had made it his responsibility to restrain the Duke and execute him, which he would have to do in a certain amount of time if he wished to avoid a fight with the Senate Guard, which was standing guard just outside the amphitheater doors. It was Knite's and Dotrice's jobs to keep both the senators and the Senate Guard at bay as Marth killed the Duke and Ike destroyed any physical evidence of whatever progress the Senate had made in agreeing on a peace treaty. They were also to kill, at the least, five other senators to make the Duke's assassination look like a sloppy murder.

"We Dragonians have a right to be proud," Samwell continued as the crowd quieted down. "We are the fathers of equality and reason, civilization and culture born on our shoulders we arrived to the lands across the Molten Sea. There are few corners of Billerikah that have not felt the thunder of our armies, or been graced by the magnificence of Dragonian culture! This continent is only the way it is because we fought off the deposits of Vampires pouring in through the mountain caves, and because House Astel conquered all of Billerikah!" the senators all nodded in agreement and approval, quiet cries of "Aye!" as the Duke continued. "The founding of Dragonia has been shrouded in violence and chaos. For example, when Prince George learned of his wife's rape by an Utwain peasant, he sent his entire army to invade and conquer Utwan, eventually imprisoning and executing thirteen hundred peasants to ensure that he had killed the assailant. Twelve years later, on his death bed, the Princess's rapist was brought before George, who had him chopped up into a dozen pieces and fed to his dogs, with his bones being burnt before George.

Our names will go down in this violent history; the war we fought against each other in will forever be etched into this world. But I ask you now, after the years of fighting we have been taken part in, will you vote for peace? My people are starving, yours divided. The war should have ended years ago and I am willing to accept the consequences for my actions against you men and King Astel."

Ike raised Amplus, zeroing in on one of the Duke's guards. Marth stepped up on to the platform, his sword lowered to his hip. The Duke turned towards Marth, who was now feet away.

"Guards," Samwell yelled. His voice sounded frightened and raspy.

Ike hurled his spear as hard as he could and watched as it soared through the air and come down on an oblivious guard. The man turned at the last moment and let out a small shriek as the spear dropped into his chest, came out the other end, and dug into the marble flooring behind him. The other guards dropped what they were doing and drew their swords. The crowd of senators jumped from their seats and began to pour down the sides of the amphitheater. Ike cut through three of the guards like butter with Acuartis and picked his spear out of the shattered marble, shoving it into the face of a fourth. Marth continued to move towards the Duke, chanting, in the Old Utwain Standard:

_The breeze endures like a dead sun,_

_Sailors grow like rainy waves,_

_Lads sail like lively girls,_

_Never command a seashell,_

_Lads die!_

Marth extended an arm and gripped his fist hard around a ball of the Duke's surcoat, his sword resting on the man's throat.

_The breeze endures like a dead sun,_

_Sailors grow like rainy waves,_

_Lads sail like lively girls,_

_Never command a seashell,_

_Lads die!_

Ike struck a fifth guard across the temple, kicking him aside and racing up the ramp leading to the platform. The senators were crowding around the platform, consuming the amphitheater with thunderous roars and the waving of angry fists pounding up in the air. Where were Knite and Dotrice? This thought spun around in Ike's mind as he climbed up onto the platform, striking down the last of the Duke's guards. Kicking the body down and onto the mob that was now swarming around him, he swiped at any senator that got near, injuring several.


	3. Prologue2

His heart began to beat faster and he began to swallow hard, exhaling large breaths. Where was Knite? Where was Dotrice? Where was Knite? Where was Dotrice? These two thoughts rambled on and on in his mind, Ike knew that, without them, their plan wouldn't work—at least, not in whole. He glided across the platform, ignoring Marth as he chanted a second verse.

_What have you done?_

_A shadow of pain as emotions shudder,_

_Once we tasted paradise,_

_Wide-eyed and wide-eyed,_

_But your heart soured._

_A sickening throng of memory -_

_Tears follow rain, follow rain,_

_Love burnt to ashes._

_In a torrent of hate,_

_I hate you._

And with the last "I hate you", Marth pulled his sword arm back, letting the blade run along the Duke's neck, slitting it open and allowing the blood to splatter upon his armor. Samwell gasped as Marth released him, watching as the Duke fell to his knees, grasping at his throat in attempt to clot the blood.

Marth smiled.

He stepped around the puddle of blood that was beginning to form around the Duke, staining both his skin and clothing alike. Marth raised his sword, its point staring down at the Duke's back. Samwell straightened his back, his hands falling to his sides, and his chin bobbling up and down in agony. Marth hadn't cut the Duke's windpipe for this reason.

The Duke did not deserve a quick death.

He had brought too much pain and misery upon Dragonia to deserve such.

Marth closed his eyes and struck the Duke's back, Incidore slashed across the Duke's back, cutting his surcoat and ripping apart both blood and bone and splattering them across the flooring of the platform. The Duke involuntarily threw himself forward, his face landing hard on the wood of the platform. Marth raised the Duke back up to his knees by grabbing the tuft of his hair.

_All lads die_

_In a torrent of hate,_

_I hate you._

_I hate you._

_Your heart has soured_

_And your conscious has broken,_

_Sleep now._

_Sleep._

Marth swung his sword back and prepared for his kill stroke.

Ike raced up to the pedestal where the Duke had been making his debate and grabbed a stack of parchment that had recently been written on. He stuffed these articles into his purse and raced back to the stairs to meet the senators, who were now crowding around the platform with more haste.

Amplus stabbed into two senators, pulling them together and onto the floor to be stomped over by the rest of the crowd. Acuartis split another senator's head open at the ear and slashed another's nose off. Ike wouldn't last much longer and Marth wouldn't be able to finish the ceremonial. And then it would have all been for nothing. Damn you Dotrice! Damn you Knite! Damn you both to the farthest reaches of the Infernos!

**III**

Roderick couldn't believe what he was seeing.

All of the senators had all jumped out of their seats the moment the first of the Duke's guards had been killed. Believing themselves to be younger and fitter than they were, they all sped down the steps of the amphitheater in vain attempts to stop the two monstrous soldiers from killing Samwell and his guards. Both Robert and Roderick had stood up, but weren't foolish enough to race with the crowd to stop the madness that was ensuing.

Roderick reached into his cloak and drew out a thin stiletto he kept for situations such as this. Robert, who still stood there, his jaw gapped open and his eyes widening after every senator that fell, noticed as Roderick jumped down into the aisle and started making his way down to the bottom of the amphitheater.

"Where in the Nine Infernos did you get that?" Robert called out.

His brother ignored him and began to push his way through the crowd. Robert climbed up the steps of the amphitheater and opened the doors at the very top, spying a patrol of troops marching down the barren nighttime streets of Coll Die. He called out to them, "You there, guards, murderers!" And this seemed to get their attention.

By this time, however, Roderick had managed to elbow his way through the crowd and climb up onto the platform. There, a giant brute met him, his sword wide and his armor thick. The brute raised his sword up, both hands grasped upon its grip and came down upon Roderick with such force that, when he fell onto the ground, the wood below him snapped. Roderick managed to block the blow, but his stiletto inevitably broke, leaving his defenseless.

The brute raised his sword up and—

_Twak!_

An ebon shaft feathered through the brute's heavy-set chest, knocking him over onto the ground.

**III**

Pycily watched as Elgarain drew out another arrow, leaping across the rows of seats so that she might gain a better angle. Arthas sped down the steps, leaping over every other one, and began to push through the crowd. Sirius tightened his grip on Frostmourne, resting his hand on Caterina's shoulder and escorting her to one of the seats.

"Remain here, milady," Pycily said in a soft voice. "I shall come and get you when deed has been finished."

Caterina jolted up, disliking what she had just heard. She grabbed Sirius' arm with both hands and stood. "No!" she cried. "Do not leave me alone, here, of all places! What if others should come? You are leaving me defenseless."

Sirius sighed, touching Caterina's frightened cheek. "Do not worry. I doubt any man here shall wish you any harm. I will not allow anything to happen to you. I promise." He gently moved away from her and jumped down the stairs, calling up to her, "Don't move!"

Arthas was now on the platform, looking down at the fiend that lay before him, an arrow in his gut. The man shuttered with life and attempted to crawl away as Arthas rested the tip of his sword on the man's back. Elgarain spun through the crowd just ahead of Sirius, knocking over a couple senators in doing so, and leapt up onto the platform, stringing a second arrow on her bow, pointing it down towards Marth. Arthas slipped Slackbite through the plating of the brute's back and paused as the man yelped and died.

**III**

Marth didn't watch as the giant knight killed Ike, instead paying attention only to his task.

The Duke sat dying before him, but to complete his mission, Marth had to finish the ceremony. Marth reached down so that his chin was resting down on shivering shoulder of Samwell III. With a crisp voice he whispered, "For the greater good of all mankind, I drain you of all bodily fluids…" he reached into the Duke's back, clamping down around his spine. "…of all your bones…" he tugged on the spine and ripped it out, tossing it down onto the wood of the platform. "…and your spirit now goes down into the Fifth Inferno to join the rest of your kin. Know that I do this for the greater good of Billerikah and that, with you gone, the world shall have centuries of prosperity."

He knew that all what he was saying was a lie and that, with the Duke dead, there would be no peace treaty and the war would continue until every last citizen of Lionsgate was killed or yielded to the might of King Astel and his Dragonian armies. This is what he wanted. While he told Ike and all of his followers that their goals were to bring wide-ranging peace upon the realm, Marth worked to destroy every living civilization that thrived on the lands his forefathers had been forced out of. Marth would not rest until his father's and his uncle's and his grandfather's deaths were avenged. He would not rest until King Astel's—and his family's—heads hung from the battlements of his estate in Eebar Piscal.

And with one last, perfect stroke, Marth slashed through the Duke's neck, cutting it into two ugly halves, blood and gore spewing from both ends. Marth let Samwell's head roll down and off the platform, a trail of blood dripping speedily behind it.

Suddenly, as the Duke's remains fell from Marth's grip, the giant knight who had killed Ike came bounding over to Marth.

**III**

Arthas slashed up with Slackbite, tearing Marth's gorget, but leaving him relatively unharmed. Marth's fist slammed into Arthas' jaw, fracturing it. He then followed this up with a quick slap to the head with the pommel of Incidore and another punch to the opposite end of his foe's mouth, shattering it and dislocating it from the main portion of his head. Arthas staggered to the side, but managed to force Marth away as he came in for another strike and split apart a piece of Marth's shoulder plating, casting it aside and revealing a bloody split in both his skin and his bone.

Elgarain drew out another arrow—wielding it like a knife—and came up to defend her companion.

Marth sidestepped quickly, lifting Incidore up and splitting it in two. He then raised his knee up to his chest and kicked Arthas in the knee, breaking the bone and bending in its opposite direction. At the same moment he grabbed Elgarain's wrist and threw her off the platform. Marth quickly stepped over the Duke's dead body, which, at this point, had been long forgotten, and came up to Arthas, who was now down on his knee, spluttering up blood and broken teeth.

He lifted Scutii, and the mighty shield came down on Arthas' neck as smooth and quick as any sword would. When he was finished, Marth cast both the shield and his opponent aside, now turning his attention back to the task at hand; the senators were now throwing themselves onto the platform, forcing him to retreat to the other end. Elgarain pushed through the legislators with haste, drawing her last arrow and aiming it towards Marth.

_Twak!_

**III**

Roderick watched as the assassin caught the woman's arrow and grabbed her by the throat, slitting it in one quick motion.

But he also watched as another man, bearing the familiar face of Lord Sirius Pycily, came at the mighty warrior with a gold-tinted short sword. The young nobleman leapt with great ferocity towards the enormous murderer, striking hard against the assassin's cuirass. Leaving only a small dent, the warrior looked down at his armor and raised his bloodied sword. Pycily lifted his sword, uttering a timid whimper.

Roderick climbed up onto the platform, his stiletto firm in hand, and raced forward to aid the young lord. He realized that the warrior had a good chance of winning this fight and that the many that were sure to come and fight him would probably all perish like Roderick predicted he and Pycily would. But was what Roderick always thought, he always thought that he might not make it through a fight so that his mindset would be sharper and more agile, and when he did this he always came out in one piece. So, when he came up next to Pycily and prepared to fight the brute himself, the only thought that continuously ran through his mind was that he would most likely perish.

Then, at the last moment, just as Roderick swung his blade back to strike, Pycily threw out his arms and yelled, "Marth! Let us end this. No other need die…no senators, no politicians, and no warriors. Either you or me, no one else shall."

"What are you requesting boy?" Marth spat out the word "boy" as if it were to be an insult or a curse.

"I request nothing of you," Pycily continued. "I challenge you to a duel; one of wits, strength, and skill with a sword. I realize you might be stronger than me and better with a sword, but consider that I am wiser. Do not be cocky."

Roderick was confused. Marth was obviously the better man, in both wits and with a sword. Sirius was in over his head and was foolish not to be aware of this fact. But, as he tried to advance on the assassin, Pycily lifted a hand and glared at him, solemnity in his eyes. Roderick knew then that he must back off, that Pycily was aware of what he was doing.

Marth dipped his sword down to his hip and smiled. "Fool…I accept your challenge and tonight I shall drink the blood of you and all others who stand in my way. Regarding that Elvish princess of yours? Dead and ruined…she shall be found in a fortnight, rotting in the gutter."

Pycily frowned, raising his sword and sliding his feet into a defensive stance. Marth grabbed the handle of Incidore with his opposite hand and came down upon Sirius like an arrow. Pycily only had a moment to register that Marth had struck and barely managed to block the blow. Pycily kicked Marth in the shin, swinging back around with Frostmourne and striking Marth across the back. However, the brute's thick armor blunted the blow and was able to easily discard Pycily's next, desperate stroke. Marth then grabbed Pycily by the throat and lifted him up into the air. Roderick attempted to intervene, but with the raise of a hand from Sirius, he stayed in his place. The senators stood around the platform now, now completely silent. Marth rested the blade of his sword on Pycily's shoulder, a despicable smile etched across the perfection of his face.

"You're not worth it," Marth said, frowning.

He kneed Pycily in the chest and tossed him to the side, then turned towards Roderick, who swung at his head with the stiletto. Marth stepped to the side and brought a fist to Roderick's temple, knocking him over and off the platform. Pycily found himself next to the bleeding corpse of Elgarain, his head propped up on her knee. He watched as Marth stepped down from the platform and climbed the steps of the amphitheater, casting aside any senator who got in his way. Within seconds, he had disappeared into nighttime streets of Coll Die.

Senators swarmed around Pycily, Roderick, and the dead bodies strewn on and around the platform. City guards suddenly elbowed themselves through the chaos, securing the bodies and helping Pycily to his feet. They began to fill his mind with all sorts of questions, all of which seemed like gibberish to him as he pushed past and headed for where Caterina sat. As he neared her she began to cry, attempting to hide her face, but instead, Pycily grabbed her by the shoulder and lifted her to her feet.

"Come now," he said. "They cannot know who you are."

So the pair collected themselves and raced out the exit of the amphitheater, refusing to look back as they disappeared into the darkness of the streets, not to be seen again for many months.


End file.
